Moral Motivation

A History

Edited by Iakovos Vasiliou

Description

Moral Motivation presents a history of the concept of moral motivation. The book consists of ten chapters by eminent scholars in the history of philosophy, covering Plato, Aristotle, later Peripatetic philosophy, medieval philosophy, Spinoza, Locke, Hume, Kant, Fichte and Hegel, and the consequentialist tradition. In addition, four interdisciplinary "Reflections" discuss how the topic of moral motivation arises in epic poetry, Cicero, early opera, and Theodore Dreiser. Most contemporary philosophical discussions of moral motivation focus on whether and how moral beliefs by themselves motivate an agent (at least to some degree) to act. In much of the history of the concept, especially before Hume, the focus is rather on how to motivate people to act morally as well as on what sort of motivation a person must act from (or what end an agents acts for) in order to be a genuinely ethical person or even to have done a genuinely ethical action. The book shows the complexity of the historical treatment of moral motivation and, moreover, how intertwined moral motivation is with central aspects of ethical theory.

Moral Motivation

A History

Edited by Iakovos Vasiliou

Author Information

Iakovos Vasiliou is currently Professor of Philosophy at The Graduate Center, City University of New York. He has published a number of articles on Plato and Aristotle, and is the author of Aiming at Virtue in Plato (Cambridge University Press, 2008). He has also taught at Brooklyn College, Georgia State University, and Johns Hopkins University.

Contributors:

Joy Connolly, Professor of Classics and Dean for Humanities at New York University, is the author of The State of Speech: Rhetoric and Political Thought in Ancient Rome (2007), The Life of Roman Republicanism (2014), and essays about Roman literature and culture. Current interests include melodrama, exemplarity, and ancient literary theory.

Anne Diebel received her Ph.D. in English and Comparative Literature from Columbia University, where she now teaches in the Core Curriculum as the Robert Belknap Faculty Fellow. She has published articles on Henry James and Theodore Dreiser and is working on a book about American modernism and personality.

Brad Inwood is University Professor Classics and Philosophy at the University of Toronto and Canada Research Chair in Ancient Philosophy. He is the author of Ethics and Human Action in Early Stoicism (1985), Reading Seneca: Stoic Philosophy at Rome (2005), and Seneca: Selected Philosophical Letters (2007), all published by Oxford University Press.

Jonathan Jacobs, PhD University of Pennsylvania (1983), works on moral psychology, metaethics, history of philosophy, and criminal justice. He has published over seventy articles and several books and has held fellowships and been a visiting scholar at universities in the U.S. and U.K. He is Professor and Chair of Philosophy, John Jay College, City University of New York.

Chadwick Jenkins is an Associate Professor of Music at the City College of New York and the Graduate Center, City University of New York. He specializes in the relationships between music and philosophy, the history of music theory, Schenkerian analysis, and opera studies.

Susan Sauvé Meyer is Professor and Chair of Philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania. A scholar of Plato, Aristotle, and Stoicism, she is the author of Aristotle on Moral Responsibility (1993, reissued with a new introduction 2011), Ancient Ethics (2008) and the forthcoming Plato: Laws I-II: Translation and Commentary (Clarendon Press).

Phillip Mitsis is Alexander S. Onassis Professor of Hellenic Culture and Civilization at New York University. He has published on Greek epic and tragedy, and on the history of ancient, medieval, and early modern philosophy. He is working on a larger study of Locke's use of ancient Epicurean, Stoic, and skeptic arguments, and the way that we conceptualize the origins of particular philosophical notions.

Steven Nadler is the William H. Hay II Professor of Philosophy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His books include Spinoza: A Life (Cambridge, 1999), and The Best of All Possible Worlds: A Story of Philosophers, God, and Evil (Princeton, 2011).

Angelica Nuzzo is Professor of Philosophy at the Graduate Center and Brooklyn College, City University of New York. Among her recent publications: History, Memory, Justice in Hegel, (Macmillan, 2012), Hegel on Religion and Politics (ed. 2013); Hegel and the Analytic Tradition (ed. 2009), Ideal Embodiment. Kant's Theory of Sensibility (Indiana, 2008).

Steven Sverdlik is Professor of Philosophy at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, where he has taught since 1982. He writes on ethics, moral psychology and punishment, and is the author of Motive and Rightness (Oxford University Press, 2011). He is currently working on issues in the morality of punishment.

Jacqueline Taylor is Professor of Philosophy at the University of San Francisco. She has published Reflecting Subjects: Passion, Sympathy and Society in Hume's Philosophy with Oxford University Press (2015). Her edited volume, Reading Hume on the Principles of Morals, is also forthcoming from OUP.

Jennifer Uleman is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Purchase College, SUNY. Her publications include An Introduction to Kant's Moral Philosophy (2010), "External Freedom in Kant's Rechtslehre: Political, Metaphysical" (2004), "On Kant, Infanticide, and Finding Oneself in a State of Nature" (2000), and various writings on art, politics, and feminism.

Iakovos Vasiliou is Professor of Philosophy at The Graduate Center, City University of New York. He is the author of Aiming at Virtue in Plato (Cambridge, 2008) and a number of articles on Plato and Aristotle.

Nancy Worman is Professor of Classics and Comparative Literature at Barnard College and Columbia University. She is the author of articles and books on style and the body in Greek literature and culture, including Abusive Mouths in Classical Athens (Cambridge 2008) and Landscape and the Spaces of Metaphor in Ancient Literary Theory and Criticism (Cambridge 2015).

Moral Motivation

A History

Edited by Iakovos Vasiliou

Reviews and Awards

"This volume includes a number of strong and even groundbreaking contributions. While most readers are likely to focus on the chapters of particular interest to them, the collection as a whole offers a sophisticated and engaging overview of the history of philosophical discussion of moral motivation, and would make an excellent companion to an upper level course on the topic. I recommend the volume to anyone with an interest in the history of the philosophical study of moral motivation."--David H. Kaufman, Bryn Mawr Classical Review

"In sum, this volume includes a number of strong and even groundbreaking contributions. While most readers are likely to focus on the chapters of particular interest to them, the collection as a whole offers a sophisticated and engaging overview of the history of philosophical discussion of moral motivation, and would make an excellent companion to an upper level course on the topic. I recommend the volume to anyone with an interest in the history of the philosophical study of moral motivation." --David H. Kaufman, Bryn Mawr Classical Review

"This collection of interesting essays is part of the "Oxford Philosophical Concepts" series, which aims to examine the many sources, often interdisciplinary, of contemporary philosophical concepts. In this regard, the volume is a success: it includes fresh, insightful reflections on philosophy in the ancient, medieval, and modern periods. Topics range from the ideas of Homer, Plato, Aristotle, and Cicero to Jewish and Christian moral philosophy to Spinoza, Locke, Hume, Kant, Fichte, and Hegel. The interdisciplinary component is provided by three "reflections": essays...Wide ranging and lucid, this rich set of readings reveals the subtle complexities of a topic central to moral life and ethical theory. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above." -- CHOICE